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It has been a while since I have posted a Salon posting, primarily it has come down to the fact that I have been busy with life and when I have had had time, I just haven't felt the urge to post or felt that what I had to post was worth posting. It also doesn't help that I haven't been feeling like reading for a while. While I have picking my way through a number of books, I just haven't the compunction to pick up a book and read solidly read for large portions of time, except when I need to.

Most of my time has been spent binge watching TV shows and the odd movie on my computer. I have managed to finish a book in the last little while and quite enjoyed it. The book was called A Place like Alice, which a really good book and I would highly recommend the book.

I am also binge listening podcasts so that I can get space back on my iPod (I am down from about 9 days to about 7.6, which I am sure went down today after about 10 hours of podcast listening, some of which I …

Description:Constance Kopp doesn’t quite fit the mold. She towers over most men, has no interest in marriage or domestic affairs, and has been isolated from the world since a family secret sent her and her sisters into hiding fifteen years ago. One day a belligerent and powerful silk factory owner runs down their buggy, and a dispute over damages turns into a war of bricks, bullets, and threats as he unleashes his gang on their family farm. When the sheriff enlists her help in convicting the men, Constance is forced to confront her past and defend her family — and she does it in a way that few women of 1914 would have dared. (via Goodreads)

Thoughts: On a number of book podcasts that I listen to, I heard good things about this book and thought that I might like this book as well.

Description: 1987. There’s only one person who has ever truly understood fourteen-year-old June Elbus, and that’s her uncle, the renowned painter Finn Weiss. Shy at school and distant from her older sister, June can only be herself in Finn’s company; he is her godfather, confidant, and best friend. So when he dies, far too young, of a mysterious illness her mother can barely speak about, June’s world is turned upside down. But Finn’s death brings a surprise acquaintance into June’s life - someone who will help her to heal and to question what she thinks she knows about Finn, her family, and even her own heart.

At Finn’s funeral, June notices a strange man lingering just beyond the crowd. A few days later, she receives a package in the mail. Inside is a beautiful teapot she recognizes from Finn’s apartment and a note from Toby, the stranger, asking f…

Description:God only knows what possessed Bill Bryson, a reluctant adventurer if ever there was one, to undertake a gruelling hike along the world's longest continuous footpath—The Appalachian Trail.

The 2,000-plus-mile trail winds through 14 states, stretching along the east coast of the United States, from Georgia to Maine. It snakes through some of the wildest and most spectacular landscapes in North America, as well as through some of its most poverty-stricken and primitive backwoods areas.

With his offbeat sensibility, his eye for the absurd, and his laugh-out-loud sense of humour, Bryson recounts his confrontations with nature at its most uncompromising over his five-month journey. (via Goodreads)Thoughts: I got this book due to advertisement for the movie starring Robert Redford and I admit that I did see the movie prior to reading th…

Description: When new schoolteacher Beth Thatcher is assigned a post in a remote mining community, her courage--and her heart--will be tested in unexpected ways. (via Goodreads)

Thoughts: This was a palate cleanser of sorts for me and I quite enjoyed the book. I normally try to avoid Christian fiction books, as I feel that they are too cookie cutter. And even though this was a typical Christian fiction book, at least for the most part, there were aspects that were interesting.

But it ended up being a fairly typical Christian romance book, especially since most of the characters felt very stock to me and didn't really change that much.

Bottom line: While I felt that the book was adequate and it was nothing earth shattering for me, this would appeal to fans of Jannette Oke a…

Description:If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, then the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey though life. Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces, during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, is at once a timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance. (via Goodreads)

Thoughts: I read this as a book club selection this past fall and honestly felt that book was okay, even though I could see what made this book this particular classic one of the greats. I had taken a university English course with this text and The Orestia being our primary texts (it was a course on classic literature). And having notes throughout various points…